I have to agree with the comments to the effect that the Exclusionary Rule is a pretty poor sanction for illegal searches. It is even harder to make a case for it being the principal sanction for illegal searches. After all, as has been pointed out elsewhere, it punishes the cops only in those cases where criminal conduct was actually taking place. If the cops kick down the door of a family who are as pure as the driven snow, there's no evidence of wrongdoing to exclude, because there is no wrongdoing. The sanction is empty.

That's not the kind of incentive structure which it would have occurred to me was good to confront the police with. But then, I'm no Supreme Court justice. (Steve is doubtless sighing with relief at that last, and I don't really blame him.)

It's a long comment; check it out if you're interested in thinking about Hudson and the Rule.

Imagine two scenarios in a duplex. In one, we have a man who has kidnapped a young girl, gagged her, literally nailed her to the floor and is repeatedly raping her. In the other, we have a guy who is working a couple of jobs, including a night shift, and is sleeping. The police, suspecting the horrors the girl is going through, cut corners in executing a valid search warrant (as this case had a valid search warrant). Now lets assume that they announce themselves, but failed to knock (as in this case). They burst into the correct side of the duplex, free the girl and arrest the rapist. Now the question is (and was before the court) what should the penalty be. They are searching with a valid search warrant, but they failed to knock. The left side of the court says the correct procedure would be to exclude the evidence from the search including evidence that stems from what is found there. So the evidence of the torture, rape, etc would all be excluded.

Now imagine that the error also included getting the wrong side of the duplex. The burst in, grab the guy just waking up, tear the place apart trying to find where he has hidden the girl. The discover they are at the wrong address, the rapist killed the girl and has left. Now how does the exclusionary rule help the innocent man who was handcuffed, kept on the floor with a knee in his back and had his place taken apart.

The exclusionary rule is premised that two wrongs can make a right. The first wrong is the polices when they fail to conduct themselves according to some standard (which may not have been something they could be trained to avoid, for example the lack of reading rights to the accused that gave us the Miranda warning). The second wrong is that suppression of truth will best serve the public interest. This rule is nearing its 100th birthday, but is a far cry from being original with the constitution. Fines, loss of job (temporary or permanently), jail time, etc are all potential ways to curb the police from illegal searches, without necessarily suppressing truth. Only the rich would be able to sue? Well only the guilty get a benefit now. Make it a criminal case. Disbar district attorneys who show themselves to be to reluctant to pursue criminality among the police. There are lots of ways to address this without suppressing the truth. And many of them also provide the potential for more directly helping the innocent.

All the court did was look at a supreme court decision and say that a different penalty than suppressing the truth may be appropriate in cases like this one.

Or innocent, pistol-packing civilians, who hear the door break in, grab their guns, & shoot whoever first enters their bedroom.

If the Court's decision were a statute, I'd call it the Civilian-&-Cop-Killing Act of 2006.

Sure. But that doesn't necessarily mean we should let guilty drug dealers go. The evidence is being seized pursuant to a legal warrant. The "crime" is kicking the door in to enforce the warrant rather than knocking and waiting a reasonable time for the dealers to answer it and let the cops in. Presumably, they might destroy the evidence in the nonce but, since that too is illegal, I'm not sure they have any claim there.

It's not a question of whether a criminal will get away with a crime, it's a question of which criminals are allowed to get away with their crimes. Given that most of these cases involve drug crimes, I'm thinking that cops who act illegally pose more of a danger to the public and that it's more important to hold them obedient to the law.

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The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police armed with a warrant can barge into homes and seize evi...